


Making a killing in the book world

by LaiaAsieo



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Gen, Post-City of Heavenly Fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 13:36:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3175078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaiaAsieo/pseuds/LaiaAsieo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thirty something years after the end of CoHF, our heroes are – more or less – living happily ever after. Needing to supplement their incomes from the Clave, Clary and Isabelle have developed a slightly unexpected additional career.   Will everything go smoothly?  Probably not . . . .</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making a killing in the book world

Clary sat at her desk, and yawned, looking somewhat despondently at the pile of page proofs lying in front of her. As she was trying to decide whether to carry on attempting to work, or whether to give up and take a nap, her computer pinged, quietly; Izzy, asking if she wanted to join her for coffee.   Cheering up, she messaged back, and pushed the proofs into an untidy pile.    

Ten minutes later, she got to the Mundane coffee shop where they generally met up.   It was convenient for the Institute, and for Clary’s apartment, and besides, as Izzy often pointed out, it was no fun going out for coffee and running into one of the children, much less having to deal with knowing which unsuitable Downworlder they were dating this week.

Clary ordered coffee, and sank gratefully into one of the comfortable sofas in a quiet corner.   A few minutes later, Izzy showed up.   Although it was spring, the weather was still cool enough to need warm clothes, so their Marks were safely covered up.   As always, Izzy was wearing her whip; to any mundane looking at her she appeared to be wearing a heavy gold bracelet in the form of a snake.

‘How’s things?”   Izzy was cheerful as ever, but continued “Mom’s driving me crazy, I needed to get out of there before she explained just _once_ more how we should organize the monthly Council meetings, otherwise I was going to murder her”

Maryse and Robert were in their late 60s now, and had finally been persuaded by the Clave that they needed to retire as heads of the New York institute. Izzy and Simon had - to Clary’s great relief – agreed to take over.   She had been worried that the Clave wouldn’t be happy with Simon in the job, as he hadn’t been born a Shadowhunter, and that they would want Jace & her to apply.   Though to be fair, as the daughter of a dangerous rebel and a runaway, who had been brought up a Mundane, she wasn’t much better herself.  

The plan was that the elder Lightwoods would hand over the running of the Institute, and then retire to Alicante. To be honest, Simon had been so involved in running the Institute for so long that he could have taken over on a day’s notice and no-one would have seen a moment’s disruption.   However, Maryse didn’t quite see things the same way; to her he would always be the serious, slightly geeky teenager he had been when Isabelle first brought him home. Certainly a more desirable son-in-law than Izzy’s previous boyfriends, but not a 45 year old man with a native talent for diplomacy and an un-matched grasp of Shadowhunter law and workings.   As a result, Izzy was finding the hand-over process distinctly painful.

“Anyway” said Izzy, “How about you. You’re looking tired”  

“I am” said Clary, slightly shortly “I’ve been out with Jace late three nights this week, chasing up a nest of Iblis demons, Theo keeps hassling me to get the corrected proofs back to him, and frankly, I’m too tired to do a decent job on them. God knows what I’m going to tell him this afternoon when he calls”

“You could tell him the truth” said Izzy, with a grin.   “And see what he says . . .”

Clary giggled, despite herself.   “He is the most Mundane mundane I’ve ever met, it must be said.   It would be quite funny to try.”  

“Tell you what,” said Izzy “Why don’t we go back when we’ve finished our coffees, and see if we can work through them together.   I realize it isn’t fair of me to dump them all on you, especially given that there’s far more likely to be problems in the text than with the illustrations”

“God, that would be fantastic” Clary replied.   “I didn’t want to ask, I know things are mad now with the transfer – but maybe we could just tear through them & get them done & back off to Theo”.

“Why were you out hunting demons, anyway?” Izzy queried, “Surely there are enough younger Shadowhunters these days with all the Ascendants trained up that someone else could have gone”

Clary shrugged “You know Jace . . . he was around when they were reported, so he had to go, and if I hadn’t gone with him, he wouldn’t have waited for anyone else.   Then he wanted us to finish up the job, because we’d started it, which took us another two nights. He still thinks he’s 25 and bloody invincible, but his back isn’t properly better after last month’s bit of excitement. He just needs to give it a chance to heal properly – which trying to kill a nest of demons all on his own really isn’t going to help.”

“I wanted to talk to you this morning, though, anyway” she continued. “Apart from the page proofs, Theo’s been chasing me about appearances again.   He wants us both” – she emphasized the ‘both’ - “to be part of the author section at Book Expo America later in the year”.  

“I thought you’d persuaded him I was too shy and retiring ever to meet anyone”   Izzy sounded unimpressed.  

Clary laughed at the thought of Izzy in her spike heels and fabulous dresses, even more impossibly glamorous in her 40s than she had been in her 20s, ever being described as ‘shy and retiring’.   “I hadn’t really ever explained to him – I guess until we actually started to sell, he wasn’t particularly bothered either way, so long as someone would traipse around bookshops for him.”

“I couldn’t, though”   Izzy, for once, sounded uncertain. “It’s fine passing as a mundane sitting here having coffee, or going shopping, but not actually meeting lots of people and talking to them.   I know you do it, Clary, and I’m endlessly grateful, but you were brought up to it, you know how to behave.”

“It really wouldn’t be a big deal, Izzy.” Clary said   “It’s not like we’ll have to have proper conversations, it’s literally just a matter of smiling a lot, signing books, looking the part, _which_ you’ll do much better than me, by the way.   You could bring Simon along, he’d enjoy the day out  & he can help cover if we need it.   And you like the extra money it brings in as much as I do”

“I could, at that” mused Izzy “You’re right, he’d have a great time, especially if there are other authors he likes there. He started all this, anyway”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It was true – when it came down to it, Simon had, quite unintentionally, started off their joint, rather improbable and most un-Shadowhunter-like extra career.   Ten years previously, when all of their children had been small, he had taken one look at what the Nephilim considered suitable reading material, winced inwardly, and sent off a very large Amazon order.

The children had been thrilled by the change in literature, and insisted on several chapters per night.   Izzy, however, had been less impressed.   Clary could still remember her, one evening when she’d left Jace at home with the kids and dropped round for an evening visit.   Izzy had appeared after lights out, clutching a book in utter disgust.

“What _is_ this shit?   ‘Katie the Kitten Fairy’   Has this Daisy Meadows woman ever _met_ a fairy? In my experience, the only thing they’re likely to do with kittens is pull their claws out for entertainment on a quiet evening. By the Angel, Simon, am I going to have to read this stuff every night for the next ten _years_. “

Simon, cautiously, said “They’re not really meant to be taken that seriously, I don’t think.   Maddy and Max like them a lot . . .   and besides I was kind of hoping that they might learn to read to themselves rather sooner than ten years.”

Izzy muttered something that Clary couldn’t quite hear, but suspected was extremely rude, and tossed the book across the room.

Clary hadn’t thought any more of it (beyond resolving to keep the Kitten Fairy book away from Jace, as she suspected his reaction might be rather similar), until a couple of months later, Izzy turned up with children in tow, and a neat manuscript book tucked under her arm.  

She shooed Maddy and Max off to play, and opened it up to show her own, much more accurate, and far more entertaining tales of fairies, Shadowhunters and werewolves.   All it needed was illustrations; obviously, this was to be Clary’s part in the process.

Izzy dismissed all of her protests of lack of time (very much the case back then with two under fives and a desperate shortage of experienced Shadowhunters to keep demons in check and help train the Ascendants), and in the end Clary was forced to admit that she would, in fact, enjoy illustrating Izzy’s stories.

The little books were a massive hit with the New York Shadowhunter children, and very quickly got magically copied and recopied, and passed on to Idris and beyond.   Which should have been the end of that; entertaining, pleasing for the two of them, but no more. Until Jocelyn picked up the stories and read through them one evening when she was babysitting for Clary & Jace on a rare evening off.  

When they got in, they found her with the whole pile of the books   “These are fabulous, Clary.   You should send these to a Mundane agent, they’d _love_ them.”

Clary was baffled   “Mom, _what_ are you talking about – of course we can’t give them to Mundanes – they’re all about Shadowhunters, Downworlders; all the things they’re not meant to know about”

Jocelyn shrugged “They’ll think they’re _fiction_ , Clary, stories, make-believe.   A few changes and tweaks to the text, that’s all they’d need, and you wouldn’t need to change the pictures at all.”

Clary had expected that Izzy would dismiss the idea out of hand. But as it happened, she and Simon had been despondently considering the relative level of Shadowhunter stipends when compared to larger New York apartments with more space for a family of four.   Clary caught them at a moment when they were trying to figure out the relative disadvantages of moving back into the Institute, with Maryse & Robert constantly at hand, or staying put in their current cramped home.

At that point, any possibility of increasing their income, no matter how remote, seemed like an excellent idea to Izzy.   “Why not,”   she shrugged. “Plenty of other stories have got out – where do you think all of the stuff in those ridiculous Dungeons and Dragons games that Simon used to play came from.”

“Can I point out” Simon said mildly “that those ‘ridiculous’ games got us out of a fair bit of trouble at certain times I can remember”   He had continued to play D&D with Eric and the crew for several years after Ascending to join the Shadowhunters, refusing to be laughed out of it by Izzy, and had only given up when work and children meant that long evenings drinking beer and rolling multi-sided dice became too difficult to arrange.  

“That” said Izzy “is beside the point.”   She went on:   “We’d have to ask the Clave, of course, but you never know, they might say yes, I can’t see why we shouldn’t try.”

Clary shrugged.   “If you don’t mind asking them . . .”   Again, she expected that they’d be dismissed out of hand; again, the timing just happened to be in their favour.   Izzy and Simon were not the only ones who were finding their stipends going less and less far with every year.   The Clave had been receiving complaints about income from Paris, London and Shanghai.   If the New York Shadowhunters were thinking of taking some independent action, that didn’t involve the Clave trying to make already stretched budgets reach even further, good luck to them.  

Armed with permission from the Clave, and a list of contacts from Jocelyn, Clary put together a suitably un-magical looking draft of the first book, and sent it out to a selection of agents.   Theo had responded, had found them a – quite reasonable - publishing deal, and the first edition of that book had finally reached the shelves eight years ago.  

Six more of the ten books that Izzy had written had been re-edited for Mundanes, and followed, one per year, with the seventh due out next month.   Unsurprisingly, they hadn’t made their fortunes, but the advances were enough to be useful, and in the last three years they had actually started to sell enough copies to earn a noticeable amount of money over and above the advance.

This increase in sales had made Theo far more excited about promotion, and the occasional requests for signings had become more frequent, leading to his new plan to take them both to BEA.  

Izzy sighed, bringing Clary’s mind back to the present.   “You’re right, it probably is time that I did my bit.   Simon’s mother will be delighted, anyway, especially if we get in the paper.   She loves the books, it gives her something she can actually talk about with her friends, ‘my daughter in law the children’s author’, you know, that sort of thing.   Mind you,” she mused “she’s doing pretty well these days with Simon taking so many trips to Idris on Clave business.   ‘My son, very successful . . .   major government post . . . he can’t tell me much, of course . . . trips abroad’   I swear she has half the neighbors convinced that he works for the CIA.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Izzy lived up to her promise, and three months later, she, Clary and Simon met outside the conference centre where the BEA was taking place.   Theo was waiting for them, and led them through into the author signing area.   Simon left the three of them arranging piles of books ready for autograph, and went off to investigate the other authors and events.

An hour or so later, he returned, bringing coffees.   They had a respectable queue of people lined up, each bearing a copy of the new book ready to be signed.   Izzy had obviously overcome her reluctance, and was enjoying making up appropriate inscriptions for the customers; ‘May the Angel be with you’ was a particular favourite with parents.  

After the signing session was finished, Theo brought more coffee into a side room.   “That was great” he said, with enthusiasm.   “We’ve shifted over 300 copies in total with all the books, and they loved you, you hit exactly the right note. You were on the agenda in the Youth Librarians’ session as well; get on their list, and you’ll find sales going up and up.”  

He picked up a coffee, and took a big drink.   “Now, I have a proposal that I think you will _love_.   The World Fantasy Convention is in New York this fall, and I am pretty sure that I can get you a table for signings there.”

“No.” Izzy was definite.   “Once is fine, but we have _real_ jobs that we have to get done.   If you’re imagining the two of us sat around all day, writing books, that is not how it goes”

‘I know, I know” Theo was all sympathy “Believe me, it’s always the way.   But not, necessarily, for much longer, Ms Lightwood.     I really believe we are on the edge of something massive here, sales that will mean the ‘day job’”;   Clary couldn’t quite believe it, but he really did make quote marks with his fingers as he spoke “will not be a problem for either of you”

Izzy sighed, loudly, in her best ‘this man is stupid’ manner

“No, no, no”   Theo misunderstood entirely “I have a lot of experience in this field.   This is _exactly_ why I want to get you to the WFC.    I don’t think you understand quite how big the adult fantasy market really is in the States, an awful lot of those fans have young children, and they want serious, well written fantasy that they can enjoy with their families.   Which is exactly what you two produce, fantasy that doesn’t talk down to those fans, that takes them seriously.”

“You have to see this” he went on, “I’ve had a chat with some of the organizers, we’ve come up with some ideas for costumes that I think absolutely reflect the feel of the books, that will help you totally engage with the fans.”   He produced a large bag from under the table, and took out a selection of flowing faux medieval dresses, breeches and jerkins.

Izzy looked at them with a mixture of horror and disgust.   “You think that _those_ will make them take us seriously?”   but, Clary realised, the long sleeping 16 year old fantasy geek in Simon was fully awake now.  

“Hey” he said, optimistically “I could dress up too, you know”

“Absolutely”, said Theo “The more the better, in fact it would make a _great_ publicity shot, Isabelle Lightwood and husband dressed fully in character.   Do you think your husband, Ms Fray . . .?”  

“No”, said Clary, “I don’t.”   She tried to imagine Jace in one of the outfits on display, and failed.

“I am _not_ “, and Izzy spoke now with great finality “wearing one of those costumes.”   She sighed, again   “If you really want,” and she looked at Simon, not Theo, Clary wasn’t surprised to see “I will dress up, but I will wear my _own_ outfit.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Clary looked at herself in the mirror, and winced slightly at the sight.   She had accepted a supposedly ‘reproduction medieval’ dress as the least-worst option, though she was pretty certain that emerald green fake satin hadn’t been that big in the middle ages. The dress had lots of shiny gold lacing, and came down to mid calf level. At 10, she probably would have loved it; at 45, she was less keen.  

She was more grateful than ever that Jace had a job to do with a group of werewolves from Maia’s pack, and had left early this morning.   He’d promised her – with a grin on his face – that he would try to finish in time to make it over to the conference centre and “join in the fun”.   She didn’t often hope that reports of demon activity were true, but right now, she was hoping at the least for something that would keep him busy for a few hours.

The buzzer rang, and Izzy and Simon came up.   If anything, Simon looked even more ridiculous than Clary, in a green fake suede jerkin with a puffy white shirt underneath, and what appeared to be beige jodhpurs.

Izzy followed him in through the door. She was dressed in full gear, with her hair twisted up and stuck through with a seraph blade, as she used to wear it in the old days. Her whip was, of course, coiled around her wrist, and she had more blades in her high boots and at her waist.  

“You can’t . . .” Clary didn’t know quite what to say

“No, look at the _glamour_ , Clary”   Izzy was outrageously entertained by all this, Clary realised.   She looked again, at the glamour, this time, rather than straight through it.     Izzy had carefully tweaked her appearance, so to any mundane observer, she would seem to be wearing bikers’ leathers, customized with silver studs and painted swirls.   Her blades were disguised as fake plastic daggers, and her whip, as usual, as a coiled snake bracelet.  

“You look great ”   Clary wished that she had had the sense to think of something similar, rather than being stuck in this ridiculous dress.   Izzy laughed.   “Actually, you don’t look as bad as you probably think you do” she said “The green suits you, at least.   You look better than Simon, anyway; the last time I saw him in such a silly outfit, he’d been dressed by a lovestruck 13 year old vampire.”

“Fantastic”   Clary said sarcastically. “I’ll try to remember that.” She sighed   “I guess we’d better get on, then, and get this over with. I think I might just glamour myself invisible until we get safely away from anywhere where someone I know might recognize me. “

They met Theo outside the convention centre.   As they got near, Clary felt much less conspicuous. Compared to the fans wearing full Star Wars stormtrooper outfits, or Lord of the Rings elf costumes, she was positively under-dressed.  

As they went in, Izzy nudged her, and pointed “Look, I’m not the only one playing this game” she muttered, in an undertone.   Looking in the direction she indicated, Clary saw a faerie girl, glamoured up to look like one of the ‘elves’, busy chatting up a mundane boy wearing plastic Spock ears and a Star Trek outfit, and two vampires surrounded by a gaggle of girls in Lolita dresses.

The actual signing session was much like the one at BEA, though playing ‘guess the source of the costume’ provided them with some entertainment.   After they’d finished their slot, Theo came over and with great excitement announced that he had set up a ‘really exciting meeting’.   Clary sighed, inwardly.   She’d been hoping for a cold beer, not more meetings, but he waved away all attempts at protest and insisted that he had an opportunity they couldn’t miss.

He led them away from the main part of the Convention, through a run of corridors, leading to a more luxuriously carpeted area of the conference centre lined with meeting rooms.   Obviously, this was where the serious deals got done.   Despite herself, Clary was impressed; perhaps Theo really had come up with something good this time.

He pushed the door to a final room open, and ushered the three of them inside.   The room was large, and contained a conference table at one end, surrounded by substantial black leather chairs.   Four men in grey suits were sitting on the far side of the table.   It also contained a heavy, unmistakable, stench of demon.  

The three of them reacted instantly, years of training and fighting together kicking in.   Simon shoved the door closed, and they moved into a line, feet apart, poised.   Izzy’s glamour dropped away as if it had never existed, and the whip flicked off her wrist and was in her hand almost without any visible movement.   Simon, next to her, pulled the seraph blade from her hair, and named it: “Gabriel”.   Clary thanked all her lucky stars that she was, at least, wearing her gear boots; they had gone better than anything else she owned with the cod-medieval dress Theo had lent her. She drew the seraph blade that lived in the sheath fitted to the left boot. Short, but it would have to do.   She also named it: “Ithuriel”

“ _Nephilim_ ” spat the largest of the ‘men’.

Theo, of course, had no idea what was going on.   It was becoming clearer to him with every moment that passed, however, that this meeting between his prized authors and the new heads of the publishing company was not going as well as he had hoped.  

He stepped forwards, and spoke, calmingly.   “Mr Johnson”   he started “May I introduce my authors . . .”

“Get _back_ ” Izzy spoke urgently.   “Theo, they’re demons”

“Ms Lightwood . . .” Theo was clearly trying to bring a note of sanity back into the situation “I know a lot of people don’t like large publishing corporations, but . . .”

“No, Theo, you don’t understand.   They’re Eidolon demons. They _eat people_ ”   Izzy sounded exasperated now.

“On that note”   The demon that Theo had addressed as Mr Johnson rose, and looked at the other two suited figures “Perhaps we might . . .” and he started to move out from behind the table.

The three Shadowhunters moved together, their line blocking the door.  

‘Mr Johnson’, who Clary decided must be the leader of the demon group, spoke again, in a rather amused tone “Well, well, so what now?”

“Now” said Izzy “We do what we always do.   We kill you.”   As she spoke, the three Shadowhunters moved together, Izzy and Clary closing in towards the demons.   Simon, Clary saw from the corner of her eye, had the presence of mind to kick over one of the heavy chairs, and push Theo into a corner, with the chair in front of him.   “Get _down_ ” he shouted, as Theo tried to push back.  

Izzy used one of the chairs to step lightly up onto the table, and using her whip, tried to herd the demons back into a corner of the room. She slashed down at the slowest, slicing across its arm, as the four transformed, gaining savage claws and teeth.

Simon hung slightly back – if there had been only three opponents, they could have engaged one each, but with four it was best for two of them to close in, and one watch for any unexpected moves.   He knew he was the slowest of the three of them; although he trained every day, as they all did, he spent too much time in meetings these days.

As Izzy slashed with her whip, Clary went in quickly at the other side of the group.   One demon raked at her cheek with its claws, but she managed to stab straight into its side, and it screamed, pulling back, and setting the demon nearest him off balance. Taking advantage of this, she kicked, hard.   The demons were fast, but they were hampered by the table, and getting in each other’s way.

Realising this, one demon broke away from the group, and tried to circle out from behind the table.   Seeing that he had a clear opening, Simon flicked his seraph blade, and hit it straight in the heart; he might not be as quick as he had been at 17, but he was a _much_ better shot.   The demon hissed, writhed, and then dissolved, leaving a cloud of dust. One down; three to go.   Simon darted in to grab the dagger.   As he bent down to retrieve it, one of the remaining demons tried to push him to the floor.   Clary spun round and stabbed at it, cursing the shortness of the blade; she made a mental note to consider knee length gear boots in the future that would conceal a more usefully sized weapon.

Izzy shifted her whip to her left hand, using her right hand to pull one of the blades from her belt.   She leapt down from the table, naming it as she jumped, and closed in on the central demon.  

With all three Shadowhunters engaged, the remaining demon saw his opportunity.   Only Simon saw what was happening; he shouted as the demon moved to tear into Izzy from behind. She couldn’t turn, fully occupied with the first demon that she was fighting.  

Before Simon was able to react, he was amazed to see that Theo, watching the fight from the corner, had also realised what was happening.   The agent stood up, slightly shakily, picked up the heavy chair that he had been using for shelter, and ungracefully but perfectly effectively, hit the demon very hard over the head from behind. It fell to the floor, heavily.   Clearly pleased by the success of his action, Theo hit it again.

By this point, both Izzy and Clary had managed to get in killing blows to their demons, which also vanished with clouds of stinking dust. Seeing the final demon laying on the floor, Izzy finished it off with a blade to its heart.  

As the final cloud of dust settled, the door started to open.   Realising that this could be an awkward situation to explain, Simon shot across to it, hoping to fend off whoever was trying to come in.   As he reached it, Clary was surprised to see his face change, relaxing.   The door opened fully, and Jace came into the room.

He looked around him, amused. “I was coming along to laugh at you all in your costumes, but I got caught up on the way, and by the time I got here, you’d finished the signing session.   Someone said you were down here in a meeting room - I was rather expecting to come help celebrate a hot publishing deal, not clean up a war zone”

Theo, now slumped on a chair, moaned gently, perhaps at the words ‘hot publishing deal’.   Jace noticed him, and went over.   “You must be Theo.” He held out his hand:   “Jace Herondale, Clary’s husband.   We’ve spoken on the phone, nice to meet you in person.”

For some reason, Jace’s civil introduction seemed to be the last straw for Theo.   He put his head in his hands, muffling his voice, but Clary could distinguish some of his words:

“madhouse . . . killing people . . . don’t know what came over me . . . “ raising his head slightly, and looking at Jace   “. . . and he laughs about it.”

Izzy went over to him, put a hand on his shoulder, and spoke kindly.   “They weren’t _people_ , Theo, they were _demons_.   It’s not the same thing at all; we had to kill them, or they would have eaten us, and probably half the people at the convention as well.”

He stared at her, unbelieving “But demons don’t exist, and I’ve met those men before, they were offering _such_ a good deal for the books”

Jace looked at him   “I wonder . . .?   Eidolon demons generally need a pattern to copy.   I suspect that they came across the publishers, and used their forms.   It would be very unlike them actually to have a proper conversation”

Theo looked more hopeful “So they might still be here?”

“Well” Jace replied, cheerfully “they probably would have eaten them first, before copying them, but we might find the odd shoelace.” ‘

“Hang on” Simon spoke now. “Surely Theo shouldn’t have been able to see them . . .?” Clary realised he was remembering the night, so many years ago now, when he and Clary had first met the Shadowhunters in the Pandemonium Club. That had been an Eidolon demon, too.   Clary had been able to see it; to Simon she had appeared to be speaking to the empty air.

“That” said Jace “is very true”.   He looked at Theo, hard.   “Do you _often_ see odd things . . .?” He let the question hang, as Theo continued to make strange, distressed noises and muttered something about “medication”.    

Clary realised that they needed to figure out what to do, without Theo overhearing.   She motioned to Simon to go and try to reassure him, and pulled Izzy and Jace into a corner.   Scrawling a Soundless rune with the stele that lived in her other boot, she said “OK, so what now?   Do we persuade him that he’s just forgotten to take his medication, and let him think that he’s going mad – or do we ‘fess up?”

“Surely we have to tell him something . . . “ Izzy sounded torn “If it was just the demons, it would be one thing, but to let him think that he’s imagining things all over the place .. . ”

“He probably doesn’t actually see that many things he shouldn’t, though”   It was Jace, now “It’s not like he spends his spare time drinking in Downworlder hangouts, I don’t suppose, he looks far too respectable for that.”

“Maybe that’s the answer” Izzy mused “Not Downworlder bars, obviously, but take him and get him thoroughly drunk, let Simon loose on him at his most persuasive, give him the rough idea that maybe he can see something special, give it a nice religious spin, but make sure he has enough of a hangover that it’ll blur it all nicely?”

It wasn’t a great suggestion, but it was the best they could come up with, so they went with it. After the fifth beer, Theo volunteered that the corporate publishers probably deserved to be eaten by demons anyway, Izzy assured him that they were perfectly happy with their current publishing deal, and Clary volunteered to draw some new pictures for publicity material.

They finally poured him into a taxi at midnight, dropped him at his apartment, and headed back to Clary & Jace’s, reasonably confident that he wouldn’t have a clear recollection of anything much the next morning.  

Izzy and Simon decided to come up for a coffee to clear their heads before going home to the Institute.   As they went in, they could hear laughter and music.

Going through into the living room, Clary found Amatis, Gabe, Maddy and Max all sprawled on the floor, playing computer games.   With them were the two vampires & the faerie boy that they’d seen at the Convention earlier.

“Hey – how did it go?”   Amatis spoke first.   “We all came over to laugh at you, but you’d already finished. Did you sell your next book for a million pound advance?   Do I get a raise on my allowance?”

“Not quite”   Jace had followed Clary into the room.   “But I think it’s fair to say they made something of a killing in the after-party. “  

**Author's Note:**

> Clary and Jace are now married, as are Isabelle and Simon, but this being the 21st century and all, both Izzy and Clary kept their own surnames. Clary uses the name Fairchild amongst the Nephilim, and Fray in the Mundane world.


End file.
